Will he put a ring on it?
Some Christians need a second or third baptism, a second or third dunkin’ in the water, because some of them need to be born again—again and again. Nothing was more disappointing to hear than that Tyler Perry announced at his 45th birthday party that he was going to be a father. A father! A father! Not an engaged man! Or a husband! A father!
Christians are notorious for talkin’ the talk. But when it comes to walkin’ the walk, they are indistinguishable from your everyday non-believin’ heathen. They are always throwing their right hand up to God and Jesus swearing that they love the Lord, avowing they trust the Lord, and yet they have no patience for either.
They tell friends to pray for a husband. They tell their friends to pray for a wife. They tell their daughters to hold on to their virginity—not their sons.
Tyler Perry is Mr. Good Deeds.
People claim to be Christian and have no sincere desire to live a Christian lifestyle. Heathens are rich too and give hand over fist to charities. Some have their own charitable foundations and volunteer for a host of good deeds. It’s not about works of the flesh. It’s about when life is not happening fast enough or producing the outcomes you expect, will you have patience and trust that God’s timing is best? The answer for most Christians is not “Yes, Jesus!” but “Hell, no!”
Doubt and unbelief are understandable when time is passing and your temples are graying, skin’s sagging and giving up, and your eggs are frying.
God, Himself, promised Abraham his wife Sarah would conceive a child regardless of their being beyond the age of bearing fruit. When God, on His rusted walker, took too long, Abraham and Sarah’s distrust caused them to offer God “help.” Then what happened? Ishmael. The children of Ishmael have been vexing Isaac, the children of the promise, ever since.
God’s timing is perfect. His answer even when it’s “Not now,” even when it’s a heartbreaking “No,” is perfect for you although it feels wrong for who you always thought you were or would be. All of us struggle with God’s timing and His plans for us, especially when they contradict the plans we have for ourselves.
There is some question as to whether Tyler Perry is using a surrogate or if an on-again/off-again girlfriend Gelila Bekele is the mother. The gorgeous Ethiopian model/ activist/ philanthropist/ humanitarian/ blah-blah-blah is said to be 7 months pregnant with a baby boy. Woohoo, another single mother.
Tyler Perry all but admitted in past interviews that though he was dating someone special, she (presumably Gelila Bekele) is not the one.
While some people are just happy that the mother-to-be is black, it bites that when a black woman becomes pregnant the black man who impregnates her, while “thrilled” for the bouncing-baby-to-be, is stereo-typically never as thrilled with her—never thrilled enough with her to make her the wife and mother of his child. This baby rumor news is deflating.
My sister, attending a party this weekend, was asked by a white man this very question:
Why don’t black men ever marry their children’s mother?
Tyler Perry has fought his way up from misfortune and a shoeless poverty. He seems to have an abundance of wonderful qualities that would appeal to countless women of childbearing age (and beyond). Tyler Perry is a business man, a job maker, a man of enviable means. He is tall and attractive and seems to have a good head on his shoulders and a good heart in his chest. It is unacceptable for him to choose the beaten path, to choose to be common. The broke and ignorant, pretending to be men, make this choice by default each and every blue day and black night.
Why won't he put a ring on it?
So what if ‘Yoncé is taken. Yup! So what if Tyra Banks and Janet Jackson rejected him. As loooooong as his money is and as many accomplished women as there are remaining and prospering on the green and fertile earth, it was not an impossibility for Tyler Perry to find a wife to cherish to be the mother of his children.
George Clooney found his Amal. Neither he nor his ego had to settle. Tyler Perry could have waited for his Imani (faith) and found his Amali (hope) . . . in time.
Black men are so sloppy with their seed. Watch your step. Like a child running with a full glass of water, they’ll spill it anywhere. FYI: No child wants half-siblings. Brothers over here. Sisters (who might just be prettier) over there. Ask them. Children want both their parents all to themselves. They don’t want to share their parents with people of strange blood—people they will, by nature, learn to resent or despise (whether in the open or in secret).
Even if Gelila Bekele is using this child to force a proposal after five or more years of anxious waiting; even if Gelila has gone the way of the Evelyn Lozadas of the world and intends to give birth to the golden calf, so to speak; even if Tyler Perry is as “fruity and rainbow-flavored” as a bag of skittles, this circumstance is not one, as a Christian, he should be proud of.
Decisions like these are selfish, full of self and self effort independent of God. Worst of all, decisions like these are faithless. For a man of Tyler Perry’s status, for a decision as important as this, there is no excuse for the hypocrisy of not marrying first.
Something about this whole situation strikes a cord as strange. Was Gelila even at the party? What do you think?
